Rep. Barney Frank will not seek re-election in 2012

Longtime liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012.

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NEWTON, Mass. — Longtime liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012.

Frank, a New Jersey native who has represented Massachusetts' 4th Congressional District since 1981, will hold a 1:00pm ET press conference at Newton City Hall, east of Boston, to discuss his decision to retire.

The 16-term lawmaker helped push Wall Street bailout legislation through Congress and was a driving force behind the sweeping Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that regulated banks following the financial crisis. His efforts were backed by consumer groups and other Democratic organizations but were vilified by his Republican critics.

"Because he's such a colorful figure -- smart, quick-witted, sharp-tongued -- it is easy to focus on that public persona," Barbara Roper, Consumer Federation of America director, told MarketWatch.

"But look past the surface and you'll find one of the most effective legislators we've seen in recent years. And, despite the barbs that are aimed at him by the right, he is effective precisely because he knows when and how to make the deals that are necessary to win a bill's passage."

Frank, 71, is the most powerful Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, which he chaired from 2007 until Democrats lost the House majority in the 2010 midterm elections. With his retirement, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) will be set to ascend to the top Democratic spot on the committee.

During the last election cycle, Frank faced his first major challenge in nearly three decades when Republicans nominated Sean Bielat, a 35-year-old businessman and former US Marine, for Frank's House seat.

Bielat made waves but had little chance of beating a powerful incumbent in a strongly Democratic-leaning district, where President Barack Obama won 61 percent of the vote in 2008.

Democratic sources told The Washington Post that they are not worried about holding the seat, although redistricting will make it slightly less Democratic. Massachusetts is set to lose one of its 10 House seats in 2012.

Brookline School Committee member Elizabeth Childs, a Republican, had already been planning to run against Frank, according to The Post, and Republican State Rep. Dan Winslow is considered another potential candidate.

Frank's decision makes him the seventeenth House Democrat this year to announce plans to step aside to seek higher office or to retire, according to FOX News Channel. Frank's fellow Massachusetts Democrat Rep. John Olver, who assumed office in 1991, decided a few weeks ago not to run for another term. Republicans, meanwhile, have announced seven retirements this cycle.

Frank became one of the first openly gay lawmakers when he publicly came out in the late 1980s, and he is known for his debating skills and verbal spars with opponents. He once told an angry woman at a public forum on the Obama administration's health care overhaul that he would not argue with her, saying he "would rather argue with a dining-room table," according to The Wall Street Journal.